


But Watch the Queen Conquer

by mazily



Category: Blue Crush (2002)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-04 16:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazily/pseuds/mazily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Blue Crush meets werewolves meets shark week. Penny Chadwick: wereshark slayer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Watch the Queen Conquer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [escritoireazul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/gifts).



> Title from the Nicki Minaj verse in Monster. Because sometimes you do, in fact, need to go with the obvious.

'eha.

Penny runs as fast and as far as she can--lungs catching fire, muscles turning to jell-o--which is decidedly less far than it was before a semester of dining hall waffles and all-nighters. She collapses on the beach. Sand sticks to her neck, her arms, and she starfishes there, just far enough back to avoid high tide, and tries to remember how to breathe. Something stabbing between her lungs.

Waves crash against the shore. Her skin breaks out in goosebumps, and she clenches her hand around the knife.

 

1\. 

“Go fucking Rainbows,” Penny says. She lifts her arms. A drop of mustard falls onto her t-shirt, and she pulls it over her head. Throws it onto the floor. A Doritos bag crinkles beneath it. “Rah rah rah.”

"Pen," Eden says. 

"Wha-?" Penny pops another pig in a blanket into her mouth. 

"Anne Marie," Eden says. She licks some Cheeto powder from her finger. Bites at her cuticles. "She said you might. That is, she said you're thinking of dropping out, which is kind of bullshit, kid."

Penny flips her off. The volume on the TV spikes; a commercial for Oxi-Clean attacks their ears. "Fuck," Penny mutters. She taps her fingers on her knees. "I don't know," she says, "I just don't, okay."

Eden turns to face Penny. Sits crosslegged and leans forward. "Talk," she says.

Penny feigns interest in the football game. "Maybe at halftime," she says. There's a roar, cheering, an announcer talking about record-breaking kickoff returns. "Go, go, run faster!"

"Yeah, Pen," Eden says. "That dude plays for the other team." 

"Right," Penny says. "Obviously."

Eden gets up and walks over to the TV. Presses the power button until it finally turns off. 

They stare at each other for an awkward year or two; Penny's fingers twitch, and she can't decide whether to throw something or hide under her bed. She picks at the hem of her shorts. A long white thread tickles her thigh.

Eden sits back down. The springs of the couch squeak. 

"It's," Penny says.

"Pen," Eden says.

The door slams shut. Penny didn't even notice the jangling of the keys in the lock, the creak when the door opens. "I scored some wings," Lena yells. "Last one to the table gets to watch me eat her share."

"Later," Eden says. Penny flips her off, elbows Eden's shoulder as they push and shove their way into the kitchen.

*

She can't sleep. Penny closes her eyes, wishes that she hadn't given away her favorite pipe in a fit of clean living, wishes that the stash she cut into the pages of Moby Dick during senior year of high school was still on the top shelf of her bookcase, wishes that Lena and Eden weren't laughing in the kitchen over a six pack, wishes-

*

Rain like a machine gun--like gunfire in a movie playing two rooms over--wakes Penny up before her alarm goes off. She rolls onto her stomach. Bangs her arm against one of her pillows until it's perfectly reshaped and buries her face against the pilled cotton. 

A patch of dry skin on her lower back itches. She smacks the spot, trying not to scratch; she's drawn blood from mosquito bites far too often. Someone's listening to Tupac. She can almost make out the sound of Eden talking, probably on the phone, probably to Anne Marie. 

Penny rolls onto her back. Stretches full-bodied and tense. 

"Hey," Lena says. She knocks as she sticks her head through the gap between the door and the frame. Penny closes in on herself, knees pulled against her will toward her chest. Heart skipping a beat before speeding up. 

"Hey," Penny says. She presses her feet against the bed. Curls her toes against the sheets. 

"Sorry," Lena says, tilting her head at the door. "Didn't realize it wasn't shut all the way."

Penny forces her body to relax. "No big," she says. She pushes herself up, turning to sit cross-legged and facing Lena. Lena leans against the doorframe. "I was about to get up anyway," Penny adds. 

"Right," Lena says. 

"I was," Penny insists. She tries to swallow a yawn, rubbing her hand against her cheek and failing miserably judging by the shit-eating grin spreading across Lena's face. She wraps her arms around her stomach. 

"Well, the coffee's cold, but your sister bought a new microwave last time she was home," Lena says. She taps her fingers against the wall a couple of times. "Right," she says. One last tap, and she turns to leave. "We can talk later."

Penny blinks. Rubs at her eyes, trying to get the gunk out of them. 

*

"Yeah," Penny says. She pops the rest of her peanut butter toast into her mouth. Finishes her Capri Sun, sucking at the straw until all that comes out are squelches and gurgling noises. "I'm dropping out. Already did it, actually, paperwork's all filed and shit."

"Pen," Eden says. 

Lena reaches across the table, places a hand on Penny's wrist. Penny shakes it off. Crumples the Capri Sun into a ball and tosses it toward the garbage can. She's walking and halfway out of the house before she even realizes she stood up in the first place.

The door slams shut behind her. Rattling on its hinges. 

She walks. Turning blindly, focusing on the slap of her feet against the ground. The sun jumps out from behind a cloud, and she reaches up to pull her sunglasses down over her eyes. She isn't wearing them. 

"Fuck," she says. The sound of the ocean surrounds her--waves crashing to the shore, the boys talking smack, laughter--and a car rumbles into the lot. She walks toward the water. Always, forever, toward the water.

She inhales. Her shoulders drop an inch, two. The back of her neck itches.

 

2\. 

The floor keeps dancing. Penny stumbles over an abandoned flip flop, catches herself against the trunk of a blue hatchback with a Darwin fish on its bumper. Reggae changes over to punk pop--a new DJ taking over, probably Naoko--and Penny leans back against the car. Finishes the rest of her beer and drops the can.

"You seen Joe?" some high schooler asks. He's lurching across the parking lot from person to person, like he's in that book asking if everyone's his mommy. Penny glares at him. He backtracks. Weaving around a stack of empties.

Penny's bored. She hates everyone here. There's a scream--high-pitched, piercing, something out of every horror movie ever made--and the entire party runs toward the water. A giant crazy spider of people.

*

Penny rests her hands on her knees and leans over to catch her breath. 

*

A cacophony of screaming. One voice over another, layered: a remix of a song Penny can't quite remember, but knows deep in her bones. 

*

"Call 911!" someone yells, just as David screams that there's a body washed up on the beach.

The moon is bright and full. Penny turns--there's something moving in the water, just past her field of vision--and spins again. The surf looks intense. There's blood on the sand. She rushes toward the water.

"Penny!" Naoko shouts. "What the fuck you-"

Penny dives into an incoming wave. The water tastes wrong; cuts sharper than normal against her arms, legs, the back of her neck. The voices calling her back to shore sound muffled. She swims. The undertow pulls at her, but she's stronger than she feels.

Something bangs into her leg. She screams. Her head dips beneath the surface, and she chokes on salt and sand and water. Her legs flail; she kicks, paddles, struggles against the ocean ("You can't beat the ocean, Pen," Anne Marie was saying, but Penny was five and brave and running).

The moon is huge. 

*

"Swim," Lena says. Penny swims. A shark the size of a house, a hotel, and Penny's legs against its teeth like a kiss.

*

She wakes up in her own bed. Naked. Her mouth tastes like blood and beer, and her brain is too big for her skull. When she finally manages to sit up, every muscle in her body screams in protest.

"Hey," Lena says. She holds out a glass of water, and Penny grabs it. It tastes like a miracle.

"What?" Penny asks. She scrapes her teeth along the top of her tongue, wrinkles her nose at the taste. She puts the water glass down on her nightstand as gently, and silently, as she can. "My mouth tastes like ass, what the fuck is."

"You decided to go for a swim," Lena says. She crosses her arms across her chest. Uncrosses them. She crosses her legs and rests both palms against her thigh, fingers tapping and tense. Penny feels like she's going to throw up. "After midnight. While drunk."

"There was-"

"A shark," Eden says. She's leaning against the doorframe, looming as effectively as possible from across the room.

Lena smiles, and it's a threat: sharp teeth, sharper tongue. "Some stupid high school haole decided to go skinny dipping and get himself killed," she says, "And you thought it was a good idea to follow his idiot example."

"No," Penny says, "That's not what." 

"You're telling your sister," Eden says. She smacks her hand against the door, palm against the wood. The door swings. Bangs against the wall. "You're calling her, and you're telling her, and she is going to kill you through the phone all the way from Australia and you will thank her for it."

Lena stares through Penny. Eyes too big and unblinking. Penny closes her eyes and drops back down onto her back.

 

3.

Her phone screams that "I'm a motherfucking monster," waking Penny from a dream about surfing and mouths open wide. She flings her arm out to try to get it to stop, bangs her pinky finger against the edge of her nightstand. "Fuck," she says. She brings her hand to her mouth and sucks at the sore spot. "Shit."

The phone stops ringing. Penny licks her lips: salty, and there's sand between her toes. There's a crack down the middle of her phone, and she isn't wearing any pyjamas. Her shorts are dripping on her dresser. There's a scratch on her right forearm that wasn't there last night.

It's 4:15 am. Penny sits up. There's a crash of pots and pans in the kitchen.

*

The airport shuttle honks its horn, and Eden runs out the door dragging two suitcases. A piece of toast in her mouth. "Awcaw," she says. One of her suitcases tips over, and she kicks it back upright. 

"Yeah yeah yeah," Lena says. "That's what all the boys say."

Eden tries to flip her off without losing either of her suitcases. She's not entirely successful.

"The second you land," Lena says. The door swings shut behind Eden, and Lena rests her head on the table. Arms crossed like a pillow. The coffeemaker beeps. Penny leans back against the refrigerator, head dropping forward without her permission, eyes unable to stay open.

"She'll get all distracted by Anne Marie," Penny says, "And she'll totally forget she never called."

Lena waves her hand. Drops it back down with a thud. "No shit," she says.

"Coffee?" Penny tries to summon the coffee with her thus far latent X-Men power of telekinesis: nothing happens, and her head is pounding. "Coooffeeeee," she calls. "Coooooffeeeeee." 

"Coffee," Lena says. 

Neither of them move.

"So," Lena says. "So the thing is."

Penny sways. Steps away from the fridge so she can open it, pull out a carton of creamer. She opens it and holds it up to her nose; once she's convinced that it's not sour, she shuffles across the room to the coffee pot. Pours an inch of creamer into her favorite mug and tops it off with coffee. 

"The thing is that it's not just a shark," Lena says. "It's a were-"

Penny takes a sip of her coffee. It hurts going down, and she coughs.

*

She stretches. Legs spread as far as she can manage, Penny leans forward and holds her body still against the floor. 

"Penny," Lena says. 

Penny hums. Her left leg feels like it's being pulled off at the hip. Sweat drips into her eye, and she reaches up to rub at it.

"Pen," Lena says.

"It's a wereshark," Penny says, pitching her voice high and spooky. She bends her right knee, and folds her leg in toward her body. Her thigh muscles shiver. "Right. I'm not sure what you think--I mean, I'm not eleven anymore, so. Very funny. Ha."

Lena crouches down. She looks almost like she's about to cry. "You need to kill it," she says. "You swam with it and lived and now you-"

Penny pops up to her feet. "Fuck you," she says. 

"I didn't want to kill you," Lena says. "I called you, and you came, and I didn't want to hurt you."

Penny stops short. Her stomach muscles tense; it's like Lena's punching her, and Penny doesn't want to inhale. If she doesn't breathe, this isn't actually happening. It isn't real. She pulls the rubber band from her ponytail, pushes her sweaty hair back from her face and ties it back up in a knot.

"So don't," Penny says. 

"Full moon lasts two more nights." Lena doesn't get up; she stays crouched on the ugly carpet, head bowed. The line of her back like she's diving beneath a wave. Penny clenches her fists. Digs her fingernails against the flesh of her palms, pressing little half moons into the skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Luna for being there and telling me I'm not crazy.


End file.
